Several of our athletes are in Costa Rica competing in the 2013 Central American Games. Seven countries are participating in the sporting event that occurs every four years and this time around Belize is making its mark. Last week Friday, the female softball team returned to the country as bronze medalists and the jewel continues to excel. Team Belize has also been able to secure a gold medal in the four hundred meter hurdles, silver in heptathlon and another bronze in triple jump. The team is yet to compete in other disciplines such as basketball, volleyball and even cycling. Secretary General of the Belize Olympic Association, Yolanda Fonseca, spoke to News Five about the success of the Belizean athletes and spoke of the upcoming games.

Yolanda Fonseca

Yolanda Fonseca, Secretary General, Belize Olympic Association

“We have a total of thirteen disciplines that we are participating. The usual, athletics, football, basketball—these are the really attractive team sport ones. And then we had bodybuilding, boxing, cycling is going to be happening today; karate later on in the week and basketball has just started. We have those that are already back here with us. We have made progress over the years; we are developing on what has taken place form before and we are very proud to say that we have had four medals in this round and we haven’t had medals in quite a long time really in the Central American Games. What we have here is one gold, one silver and two bronze. Our very first medal was the softball girls and they got a bronze medal there. The second medal that we got was in track and field and that was the gold. Mister Kenneth Medwood, a Belizean living in L.A., he ran for us. He ran fifty-one point one four seconds in the four hundred meter hurdles. And he just made a distance between him and second place; it was like ten strides in between. On another day, we had our silver medalist, Miss Katy Sealy, living in England; her father is a Belizean from Dangriga. She won in the heptathlon; that is the eight different events that she had to perform. Our fourth medal was another bronze by Brandon Jones also living in the United States and he did the triple jump with fourteen point nine eight meters which is another bronze and we did pretty well there.”